Sai recognized the wall as draconic immediately. He couldn't decide what the building had once been; only the one smashed wall and a bit of floor remained. But the pale, faintly yellow tinge of the limestone, the clean and precise cut of the blocks, and the alternating placement of raised and indented sections could only have been crafted by dragons. He wondered vaguely what murals or paintings had once adorned the wall. Then wondered how long it took for draconic paint to fade so completely.

  After fighting off yet another serpentine nagi, Sai led his raptor on a walk around the remains of the wall. On the far side were other ruined buildings, surrounded by toppled stone. Farther north still was a longer wall that still seemed intact save the part that had been swallowed by a branch of the canyon that had cleaved the Vale. The longer wall, however, Sai could place.

  "That's the curtain wall of a draconic hatchery," he said. "The egg chambers and incubators will be within those walls. The buildings out here must have been the nurseries for the hatchlings. But why is there a draconic hatchery here?"

  The shrill shriek of a megabat swooping down from the Void interrupted his train of thought. Once they'd put it down and the raptor had eaten its fill of the corpse, they headed north to the wall. Along the west edge, away from the canyon, was an open archway, painted in fresh reds and yellows and greens. Sai walked through and looked around. "What is this place?" he mused. To the east, towards the canyon, the ground grew jagged and uneven as if it had buckled when the canyon opened. Half of the main egg chamber had fallen into the canyon. What remained now stood on a low plateau, and though its upper story seemed to have collapsed, the rest of it appeared intact. North of the gate were a few scattered ruins, behind which loomed a midsized ziggurat that had lost its peak. Beyond that was the sheer face of the void mountains; nothing there had survived their eruption.

  "This place looks like a draconic hatchery after the Horde is through with it," Sai said. "But it feels…" He trailed off and looked around again. There was no wind in the Vale; the void mountains stretched past the sky to the Void itself, so no wind could pass through them. So the stillness Sai felt wasn't unusual. There were no birds in the Vale, no insects. Only children of Syn. In the distance roared a waterfall, cascading into the canyon. "It feels quiet," Sai finished. "Like Syn's not here." He turned to the raptor. "I don't know if I'm relieved or worried."

  "Grrr…" said the raptor.

  Sai decided to search the egg chamber first. Though unlikely, if any eggs still remained, it would give him raw materials to create any number of alchemical compounds or wyrmkin thralls, especially combined with the wyrmsblood he'd found in the citadel. He scrambled up the rough face of the plateau and turned to help up the raptor which, he noticed too late, had simply jumped to the top. The chamber's traditional entry hallway had collapsed, leaving a weed-choked walkway lined by pillars that led to the main entrance.

  As soon as he entered, Sai realized that something was wrong. The air was warm and smelled of wood smoke. The braziers were lit with real fire which cast real light. The room to the right of the small foyer inside the door had been converted into a simple but tidy bedroom, complete with a cleanly dressed bed. The room to the left of the foyer was a dining room. There was a basin of water, a simple stone oven, and a wall lined with pots and barrels. Someone had stolen one of the red and gold rugs from the citadel and set it on the floor. At the center of the rug stood a broad wooden table surrounded by stools. And on one of the stools hunched a golden quezpal, who was fitting a sharpened blade of slate into the slotted edge of an ornate macuahuitl.

  Sai had always considered the quezpalli to be the best of the wyrmkin. The orcs did them an injustice by calling their species "lizard." The bipedal quezpalli were taller and stronger even than the Trotzen. They were one of the few varieties of wyrmkin that retained the scale colors of their draconic creators, and though the quezpalli had lost their ancestors' wings, they'd kept their serpentine tails and faces. But most interestingly—to Sai, at least—was the fact that they'd also kept their creators' intellects. The dragons, of course, considered this fact to be their greatest failing; they'd created the wyrmkin to be fodder for the front lines of the war against the Trotzen Horde, not to be sentient creatures with their own wills. But the Abriasha, gods of people, had stolen in and uplifted their creation to personhood, and the dragons would never forgive them.

  "You're staring, Wulfgar," said the golden quezpal in Draconic.

  Sai's jaw dropped. "How do you know my name?" he asked, responding in Draconic by reflex. But her voice sounded somehow familiar. "And how can you talk? Lizards don't talk."

  The quezpal craned her head around to stare at him, her fanged jaw slightly agape. Sai had never learned how to read the emotions of the quezpalli's reptilian faces. Drang had claimed to be able to tell what they were feeling, but Sai had never really believed him. After a moment of silence, the quezpal's eyes narrowed and her mouth snapped shut before she turned back to her work. "You've forgotten again," she said.

  "I don't think we've ever met," Sai said, walking up to the table. "I'd remember a talking lizard. Now answer my question."

  "You never change," said the quezpal. Sai could not read her expressions, but her tone of voice was clear. And bitter.

  Sai raised his left arm and pointed a claw at the quezpal's face. "Obey," he commanded, sending out his psychic shackles.

  The fiery pain that lanced back into Sai's mind through the shackles was as immediate as it was familiar. He cried out and staggered backwards, clutching at his eyes. "You—!" he shouted but was cut off by another wave of pain. He ground his teeth and went through the steps he'd established years ago to put out the psychic flames left in the wake of contact with the mind of a dragon. Once they were extinguished, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The quezpal had not looked up from her work. "You're a dragon," Sai panted.

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  "And trapped in the form of a slave," the quezpal said. Anger and bitterness burned beneath her words as brightly as the fire had raged through Sai's mind. "I imagine Syn finds great amusement in forcing me to share a cage with my former jailor."

  "Jailor?" Sai asked. Then he blinked. "Wait… Coatl-ome?"

  The quezpal bared her serrated teeth. "That is the name you assigned me, yes," she said. "So I am still 'Dragon-Two.'"

  "You could have picked a new name for yourself," Sai told her.

  Coatl-ome put down the macuahuitl and smiled at Sai. At least, Sai assumed it was supposed to be a smile. "I could never," she said. The sudden geniality of her tone faded quickly as she continued. "You gave me this name, and I will keep it forever so that I never forget what you did to me."

  Sai scowled back. "And you get on me for never changing," he said.

  The stool clattered to its side as Coatl-ome leapt to her feet and stormed up to Sai. The raptor tried to interpose itself between them, but Sai sent it a command to stay back. "What do you want, Wulfgar?" she hissed.

  "What do I want?" Sai asked. "I want out of here."

  Coatl-ome pointed to the foyer. "Door's over there," she said.

  "Not the building," Sai shouted at her. "The Vale. I want to be free of Syn."

  "Free of Syn…" Coatl-ome said, her voice trailing off. She clutched at the black horns on her head, her eyes clenched shut. Then she turned her back on him, righted her stool, and sat back down. "You want to best the Eternal Nightmare in its own dominion."

  "Yes," said Sai.

  Coatl-ome shook her head and picked up the macuahuitl. "Well," she said, "I suppose nobody has ever been able to say you're not driven. Even if your drive led you to torture whelps and the yet unhatched."

  "Look," Sai said, walking back up to the table. "We've both done awful things. We wouldn't be here otherwise. But you should help me. We can escape. Together."

  "Being caged in the same Vale as you is bad enough," said Coatl-ome. "I'll not spend unneeded time with you."

  "Seriously?" Sai asked. "You'd rather be stuck here forever."

  Coatl-ome slammed the macuahuitl down on the table, snapping its hilt clean off and knocking loose several of the blades. "There is no escape, Wulfgar," she shouted. "We will never be free of Syn."

  Sai scowled at her. "You can't know that if you won't even try," he told her.

  "Try—!" she replied, clutching at her horns again. Then she took a deep breath, put her claws on the table, and shook her head. "If you insist upon trying to escape, I will offer assistance. I can make you arms and armor in the style of the dragons." She opened her eyes and picked up one of the loose blades. "Nightmare knows I've ample time to practice my craft." She looked askance at Sai. "Outside that, you're on your own. I'll have no part of it."

  "Fine," Sai said. "And thank you." Coatl-ome grunted and went back to work. Sai watched her work for a moment. "Can I ask you something?"

  "We're not friends, Wulfgar," said Coatl-ome. Then she blinked. "Wait." She raised her head and sniffed the air. "You smell…"

  Sai scoffed. "You're none to fresh yourself, lizard breath," he said.

  Coatl-ome's jaw dropped. "Really?" she asked. "Lizard breath? And don't interrupt me. I was going to say you smell like dragon."

  Sai rapped his chest. "Well it's one hundred percent orc in here," he said.

  "Your arm begs to differ," said Coatl-ome.

  "And whose fault is that?" Sai asked.

  "Entirely your own," Coatl-ome replied. "But I still sense additional power from you."

  "I do have a vial of wyrmsblood on me," Sai admitted.

  "Really?" Coatl-ome asked. "Wyrmsblood. Still?"

  "Look," Sai said. "I'm going to need every advantage I can get if I'm going to get out of here."

  Coatl-ome shook her head. "And you'll use the blood of my kin to do it," she said.

  "If that's what it takes," said Sai. "If it helps, it's probably not yours this time."

  "No," said Coatl-ome. "I don't find that helpful. Thank you."

  "Well be helpful then," Sai said. "You know more about wyrmsblood than I do. Teach me something new to do with this."

  Coatl-ome clenched her claws. The raptor growled. "Teach you how to corrupt the blood of my fallen kin?" Coatl-ome asked.

  "The blood's already spilled, Coatl-ome," Sai told her. "If you want to respect the fallen, help me do something useful with it."

  Coatl-ome narrowed her eyes and said nothing. But eventually she sighed and went back to inspecting the slate blades. "Wyrmsblood bears the essence of the dragons," she said. "We are more than just our ability to bend the mana with our thoughts, which is all your experiments seem to have focused on. We are also the sturdiest of all the creatures on Serinor, famed for our ability to ignore nearly any wound. But it is not our scales or our size that give us that reputation."

  "No," Sai said, "it's because your wounds close almost as fast as we stab…" His voice trailed off. "Oh. Oh!"

  "The alchemy station's in the ruined ziggurat to the north," she said. "Run your experiments there."

  Sai rambled as he headed back outside. "If I amplify the vital elements of the wyrmsblood and bend the mana signature to be compatible with the Trotzen physique…" he said.

  "You're welcome," called Coatl-ome as he walked out.

  There was only a single room left inside the northern ziggurat. All the others had caved in when the upper floors had collapsed. It was smaller than he'd expected. And cozier. There was a single bed against the far wall with a low armoire beside it. A pair of sparsely filled bookshelves stood against the north wall. "This…" Sai said. He walked with hesitation to the foot of the bed. "This place feels…" He looked back at the raptor. "I want to say familiar, but… Comfortable, maybe?" He traced a finger over the whorls carved into the footboard of the bed. "It's odd," he went on. "Like something I can't remember."

  Then he noticed the table in the corner that was cluttered with beakers and notebooks and an alembic. "By the Nightmare!" he shouted, rushing over to it. "It's an alchemy set!" He picked up a lethal stiletto from among the other paraphernalia, beaming at the whole lot. "It looks just like the one I used to have in…"

  His voice trailed off. Have in where? Why couldn't he remember? "Have in…" He knew he'd seen this alchemy set before. But where had it come from? How did it get here? And why was it so familiar? A distant but piercing chime rang through his thoughts, clouding his memory.

  Sai shook his head and looked around. A distant ringing in his ears quickly faded away. He'd been talking to himself again. "What was I saying?" he asked the raptor. Then he noticed the stiletto in his hand and the alchemy set laid out on the table beside him. "Oh!" he cried. "An alchemy set. That'll be handy."

  He set down the knife and walked a circle around the center of the room. "This place is nice," he said. "I feel like I could spend forever here." He laughed. "Well. Not forever forever. I still need to get out of this Vale." He stopped walking and stared out the door. "Somehow." He sighed.